PR with Payload
Service Provider Name: Beethoven X DAO
Core Contributor(s): franz, groninge, daniel
Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct 1 (or link to your own): Yes
Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines 1: Yes
Introduction & Domains of Operation:
Since the passing of BIP-254 and it’s subsequent extension (BIP-393, BIP-394, BIP-518), the Beethoven X DAO has functioned as a Balancer Service Provider since May 1, 2023. This proposal aims to extend the technical services and advisory component for an additional 6 months (July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024). As in the previous proposals, marketing services provided by the Beethoven X DAO are submitted as a separate proposal. Our primary roles include API team lead (@franzns), frontend contributor (groninge) and ecosystem technical lead (daniel).
@Fernando’s recent post outlines a product vision for Balancer v3, a vision that all technical teams have spent the last six months working to build out. As we approach feature complete and prepare to release the codebase to the wider public, we move steadily closer to bringing v3 to market.
The following statement from our previous proposal remains as relevant today as it was six months ago:
The upcoming release of Balancer v3 presents an opportunity for Balancer to regain narrative and establish ourselves as the platform to empower current and future AMM innovation. We are hugely optimistic in the future of Balancer Protocol and steadfast in our dedication to support the ecosystem to the best of our abilities. As we work towards Balancer v3, it has been inspiring to participate in the development of a more cohesive technology stack to empower the future of the protocol. A technology stack that leverages the collective experiences and expertise of contributors across the ecosystem, avoiding siloed development strategies that lead to unnecessary system complexity in Balancer v2.
As we operate as a small part of a much larger system, our successes are enabled by many across the ecosystem. As such, we present a broad technical ecosystem update below that touches on our specific contributions when relevant. We welcome community feedback.
Integrations
As of January 2024, Three Rocks wound down their operations and all responsibilities transitioned to Balancer Labs under the leadership of John Grant. Despite a reduction in team size, the new integrations team has proven themselves more than capable of stepping up to the challenge. Below is a list of the major initiatives and projects that the integrations team has taken on over the last six months:
- Rate provider reviews - @Marcus and @Mkflow27 have successfully introduced a structured internal process to manage rate provider reviews that has created transparency, clear deadlines and improved turnaround time dramatically. The positive impact has been felt across the entire ecosystem.
- Aggregator / Solver relations - The success of Balancer v3 will be tightly coupled to our ability to get v3 liquidity integrated into the broader liquidity landscape. @lipman and John Grant have spent the last several month building bridges to all aggregators and solvers in our network. Getting them early access to the v3 codebase and documentation, and doing whatever they can to ensure that v3 liquidity will have aggregator support from day one.
- V3 Docs - While conducting extensive interviews with partners, documentation was identified as one of the weakest points of Balancer v2. The integrations team, lead by mkflow, has taken ownership over the v3 docs, and has invested significant energy to ensure that v3 will launch with robust documentation, with a focus on easy to use guides for integrators and builders.
- Balancer Maths - A lightweight multi-language repository that will contain invariant implementations for all known Balancer pools. By providing invariant implementations in commonly used programming languages (typescript, python, rust), this repository will serve as a reference point for any teams that require off-chain computation of pool maths (ie: aggregators and solvers).
- Scaffold Balancer - Funded as a grant in partnership with the BuidlGuidl, Scaffold Balancer will serve as a toolkit for developers looking to build custom AMMs or Hooks on Balancer v3. Based on the popular scaffold-eth, Scaffold Balancer provides an interactive UI that allows developers to build, deploy and interact with custom AMMs and hooks. Our goal is for Balancer v3 to become the destination for AMM experimentation and innovation.
Smart Contracts
Balancer v3 has been the core focus of the Smart Contracts team for the entire last two quarters, and we are rapidly approaching feature complete. While an exact date has not been set, we expect to release the code base within the next 6 weeks, giving the general public an opportunity to provide feedback prior to freezing the code and starting formal audits. While the v3 development cycle has extended beyond what we had initially planned, the additional time was necessary to iterate on core features until we found an optimal solution.
As always, it has been a pleasure collaborating closely with @juani, @endymionjkb, @joaobrunoah and Elshan over the last six months. I think I can speak for the entire team when I say that we’re very much looking forward to sharing more details on Balancer v3 over the coming months.
SDK
The new b-sdk is now feature complete for Balancer v2, with v3 support well underway and on track to be feature complete prior to v3 rollout. In contrast to the existing Balancer SDK, the new b-sdk is highly focused on facilitating on-chain interactions with the Balancer Protocol. Data intensive operations are now delegated to the Balancer API, allowing the SDK to be focused in its goals. In line with that goal, the Smart Order Router (SOR) has been migrated from the SDK to the API, which can leverage data caching to ensure fresh quotes and fast response times. With the reduction in scope, the SDK team have already become active contributors to the API and will transition into supporting integrations in the mid-term.
Frontend
Dubbed internally Project Zen, the new Balancer Frontend is undergoing active testing in a closed beta prior to a public launch in early July. As a quick recap, the new Balancer Frontend is:
- Multi-chain native to facilitate exploration of liquidity pools across all Balancer supported networks.
- Statically rendered and API powered to enable blazing fast load times
- Beautifully designed, adopting the new “Zen” themed rebrand that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
- Version agnostic, supporting all v2 pools with v3 support underway.
- Designed with a flexible architecture, highlighted by it’s ability to easily support v2, v3 and the new CoW AMM pools
Led by @gareth, OpCo and Beethoven X contributors have rebuilt the Balancer App from the ground up, leveraging their extensive Balancer domain knowledge to build a better product that will serve the ecosystem for the coming years.
Subgraph / Data
The development of the v3 subgraph has continued in lock-step with the smart contracts. Led by @mendesfabio, the data team has done a great job of reducing the subgraph’s scope, migrating from a monolithic design that attempted to solve all problems, to a modular design focused primarily on data extraction. This revised approach allows the API to manage data transformation, providing a granular level of control that will result in improved data quality across the ecosystem.
By separating vault from pools, the modular approach to the v3 subgraph aims to reduce lengthy subgraph redeployments that have been bottlenecks to new pool type development on v2. Rather than redeploying a singular monolithic subgraph, a new pool type will only require the deployment of a pools subgraph that will be significantly lighter weight.
To support new pool type development by external teams, the data team has developed a CLI tool that will manage much of the scaffolding for developers when looking to include their newly developed pool types to the Balancer Pools Subgraph.
Outside of subgraph development, the data team remains committed to the development of high quality dune dashboard and reusable spells, highlighted by the Balancer dune org recently passing 1,000 stars. Additionally, the data team has been engaged with external data providers working to ensure the consistency of Balancer data across the broader ecosystem, and has begun engaging with Hypernative (SP) to ensure high quality system monitoring is in place for v3 launch.
API
Below, we present general API updates, written by Beethoven X DAO contributor franz, API team lead:
In the first half of 2024, our main focus has been on enhancing the API and streamlining processes to meet the needs of the upcoming Zen UI and Balancer V3. We achieved several important milestones during this period.
The API is now ready to serve the needs of the new UI. We’ve worked closely with OpCo to ensure all their needs are satisfied. We continued to improve the new API on various fronts. For example, we restructured the database to support more historical data, including swaps, liquidity additions and removals, pool snapshots, and token pricing. This allows for more comprehensive data analysis and reporting. The new Smart Order Router has also been fully integrated now and improved order routing efficiency across the platform. Throughout these efforts, maintaining backward compatibility has been a priority to ensure uninterrupted service for existing users.
Optimizing the allow listing process for tokens, pools, and gauges was another significant and important task. We’ve analyzed the current process end-to-end and were able to find several inefficiencies. The implementation of the new process has reduced manual work, making it more efficient and less error-prone for both Balancer Maxis as well as OpCo. This process will continue to be optimized with the new Balancer UI.
Additional integration efforts included adding support for COWAMM which is a new AMM primitive developed in partnership with Cow Swap. In addition, integration for the new Balancer Vault V3 has started and is progressing alongside the Smart Contract development. We also integrated Mode and Fraxtal to support the launch of Balancer on those networks.
We also reviewed and fixed the token terminal reporting of revenue for all Balancer chains, ensuring accurate financial reporting. Additionally, we worked with DEX Screener to integrate Balancer Pools properly into their App. Support is not yet live for all chains, but they are in the works.
Key Objectives & Success Metrics:
- Make it easier to build on Balancer - Having become domain experts on Balancer tech, Beethoven X collaborators are uniquely positioned to identify and help build solutions for many of the pain points that exist in the current Balancer tech stack.
- Reduce duplicate effort across the ecosystem - How do we as an ecosystem invest significantly more energy into the future success of Balancer protocol and spend less time on the problems of today?
- Help drive the direction of the Balancer protocol - We believe Balancer protocol should be a platform that empowers current and future AMM innovation. We will continue to work to align the various parties in the balancer ecosystem around this vision. How do we put a true focus on this goal? How do we empower developers to build the next generation of AMMs on Balancer protocol?
Length of Engagement & Budget:
Beethoven X DAO is requesting 6 months of funding starting July 1, 2024 and ending December 31, 2024.
We request to extend the existing budget of $29,000 USDC per month for technical development and advisory.
ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x811912c19eEF91b9Dc3cA52fc426590cFB84FC86
